"Stupid Loriam, doing whatever she wants."

In the halls of the royal palace of vampires, an angry murmur in human language could be heard.

"Not just that she turned me into a little girl, she is even delusional enough to attempt to replace her actual daughter with me. Unbelievable."

Julia has been walking for some time now, without any actual goal to reach. The sole reason for her walk through the halls of the palace was to complain and calm down after her talk with Loriam. During her walk, she did attract the attention of a few maids as well as guards, but she ignored them and angrily passed by them. Even if they attempted to have a conversation with her, she wouldn’t have the slightest idea of what they were saying. And so, Julia aimlessly walked until she stopped with a sigh.

"Guess I calmed down enough. Maybe I should go to have that language lesson with Mirei, but... where am I exactly?"

Julia looked around for anything that would indicate which way she should go, but couldn’t find anything or anyone to help her. She was utterly lost.

"Which way to go… Maybe those stairs? I think I went on some stairs on my walk."

Julia murmured to herself as she stepped onto the stairs and went to the upper floor. Entering another hallway, Julia looked around.

"Now… maybe left?"

Julia thought for a bit and continued her walk, this time, as she hoped, in the direction of the library. As she walked, she turned at multiple corners and went up and down multiple staircases. Every time she attempted to ask for directions from a passing maid, she was always met with a dumfounded expression and a series of questions in vampiric language.

"Damn it, why is this place so enormous!?"

Julia cursed as she slammed the wall with her fist. She realized just how much easier it would be if she knew how to speak in vampiric.

"I am lost... if there was somebody who knew how to speak the human language... even if it would be Loriam…"

Julia wished from the bottom of her heart that somebody would inform Loriam of Julia’s predicament and that she would come and rescue Julia. But she herself had a hard time understanding why she would even wish for that in the first place.

"Mirei… Loriam… somebody please help me."

Julia sat on the soft carpet that was laid in the hallway. Her eyes landed on a portrait hanging on the wall. It was a portrait of Loriam, sitting on a throne and holding a baby in her arms. Julia started to fiddle with the necklace unknowingly.

"Were you actually saying the truth? Are you really my mother? If so then…"

Julia thought about her conversation with Loriam, wondering whether or not Loriam was saying the truth, but what would she gain by lying to Julia? Julia was confused the more she thought about it. Thinking about it Loriam started crying after she drank my blood back then... She did look happy to see me.

"Here you are."

The sudden feminine voice brought Julia back to the present. She looked toward the source of the voice with expectation, and her heart started to slightly ache when she saw Mirei standing there.

"Mirei? What are you doing here, shouldn’t you be in the library?"

"Yes, and I intended to wait there, but as I recall, your relationship with your mother is rather... negative. So, I chose to return, and it seems that I made the right choice."

Julia felt disappointed after hearing Mirei’s words. Why would she be disappointed, she had no idea. She just felt disappointed, deep down within her very soul.

"So, you came to get me on your own? Loriam, didn’t send you?"

Julia inquired from Mirei with curiosity. Mirei merely shook her head, once again disappointing Julia.

"I hadn’t seen her majesty since I left the dining room."

"Is that so…"

Julia couldn’t understand why she was feeling the way she did, merely the fact that Loriam wasn’t the one to look for her was making her sad. Stupid overaged loli making me feel this way with all of those mother talks!

"Say Mirei? You were preparing a language lesson, right? Could I have it now? I have a bit of a problem with the language barrier..."

"Yes, I heard from others, your excellency. Let’s go."

Mirei extended her hand to Julia with a smile and helped Julia back to her feet. Julia started to feel better about being able to converse with someone, though they weren’t talking at all but just having the possibility was enough for Julia as she followed behind Mirei.

…

"... as I said before, when you intend to use this word, you should be careful to pronounce the ‘Sh’ properly. Pronouncing it as 'sch’ would change the meaning and potentially insult the person you are talking to."

For the past several hours, Julia had been sitting in a library studying vampiric language under Mirei’s supervision. The library itself was really spacious, filled with thousands of books, and had a very relaxing atmosphere. The usual calmness of the library was only interrupted by Mirei giving her lecture.

Julia listened attentively to the lecture. Mirei was a surprisingly patient teacher, as she calmly pointed out Julia’s mistakes and took the time to explain them for an x time within half an hour.

"Now then, please read this sentence."

"Unhar saem, arschi so."

"Wrong! Is arshi not arsch-. I-It’s not the other one."

Julia did as she was instructed by Mirei, however, it only resulted in another mistake. The same mistake she has been doing for an hour now.

"…it’s not my fault they sound so similar."

Julia said dejectedly, no matter how much she tried, she had a hard time differentiating the two. And the fact that their written form was only different in one slightly tilted line wasn’t helping her much either.

"I understand that you are not used to it since neither of them is present in human language, but I believe that you will be able to pronounce them correctly soon enough."

"…if you say so."

…

Julia was studying tirelessly for an entire day. During that time, she did improve in her ability to speak the vampiric language, just as Mirei said. Her handwriting got a little cleaner than it was earlier that day, and even her pronunciation got much better, at least according to Mirei.

 However, Julia wasn’t able to focus on Mirei’s lecture for the past hour. Since she was getting increasingly hungrier, despite the fact that she had eaten breakfast as well as lunch. Sure, it may not be much that Julia ate, but Loria did tell her that vampires can eat things other than blood, so she thought it would be okay.

Her increasing hunger was distracting her from the lecture, but there was another reason for her concern. Mirei, illuminated by a setting sun, was just so alluring that Julia could not take her eyes off her.

She looks so beautiful... She wouldn’t mind, would she? Julia licked her lips subconsciously before shaking her head to clear her thoughts. No, I shouldn’t be thinking like this.

More specifically, the alluring part of Mirei, the part that Julia could not take her eyes off, was Mirei’s neck. As Julia’s hunger increased, she was more and more drawn toward Mirei’s neck. Thanks to this, she wasn’t able to focus on the lecture, as the urge to sink her fangs into Mirei’s delicate neck became painful.

"Your excellency, you do not look too well. Maybe you should rest for today."

"Y-Yea, I will do that."

Luckily for Julia, Mirei noticed she wasn’t okay and decided to end the lecture for today. Julia thanked Mirei for her guidance and patience and hurriedly left the library. Thankfully, Julia did manage to memorize the correct path from her room to the library, and so she managed to get back to her room relatively quickly.

"Haa… haa…That was close…"

Not even bothering to change her clothes, Julia collapsed onto her bed, panting heavily. She didn’t expect that running for less than two minutes would exhaust her so much, though her hunger was most likely at fault.

"…I almost attacked Mirei…what’s wrong with me… fuck I am so hungry."

Julia reached toward the nightstand drawer of her nightstand and opened it. To her dismay, there wasn’t anything more than snacks that Loriam brought in the morning, not the type of things that you would take to clench hunger.

"Is there nothing else?.... I guess this will have to do.",

Julia opened a pack of potato chips and started to eat. As expected, it didn't affect her hunger one bit. But there was something else bothering her about them.

"What are these? They somehow lack flavor…"

Julia inspected the bag of chips, but there wasn’t anything strange about it. It was just normal bacon-flavored chips. It was even the same brand she always bought before. But now she couldn’t really taste the flavor that much. If anything, the taste of these chips was strange.

"…Still I have nothing better so…"

Regardless of the strange taste, Julia continued to eat the chips, until she emptied the rest of the pack. As expected, it didn’t affect her hunger much, though she did feel slightly better. With a sigh, Julia disposed of the empty pack.

"Sigh, maybe I should have more toast for breakfast and those eggs that Loriam pealed… I should have finished eating…"

Knock

Knock

Julia was startled by a gentle knock on the door. She panicked and hurriedly laid down on her bed as she wrapped herself in a blanket facing away from the door. There were only two possible people that would be on the other side of the door. Either Mirei or Loriam was there since they are apparently the only vampires here that can speak human language. Though Julia couldn’t understand why the vampire queen would even learn it in the first place.

"Julia? Are you sleeping?"

Julia was slightly relieved when she heard Loriam’s whispering voice from the door instead of Mirei’s. This meant that there wasn't a risk of Julia attacking Mirei. But this has brought its own set of troubles. If Mirei realized that Julia was awake, then Julia would just be able to send her away with an excuse of wanting to rest. But Loriam would most likely be harder to get rid of.

"She really is asleep, isn’t she? …whaa…just like Mirei said, she really doesn’t look good. At least she is breathing steadily."

Julia could hear Loriam’s concerned whisper really close to her. Please leave. If you are my mom, then leave your sleeping daughter alone! Julia was panicking internally as she kept her eyes shut, afraid of Loriam noticing. But instead of leaving, Loriam placed her small hand on Julia’s forehead.

"So hot…I should have known this would happen. Poor girl…."

Loriam’s cold hand moved from Julia’s forehead and started to gently pet Julia’s head. Julia struggled to keep her eyes closed. It wasn’t as if she disliked that Loriam was petting her. In fact, she somehow liked it. But she felt conflicted; She is actually worried about me… what should I do?

"…I should let you rest, sweet dreams honey."

Loriam planted a gentle kiss on Julia’s forehead and Julia could hear Loriam’s soft footsteps distancing from her until she heard doors being closed. Julia continued pretending that she is asleep for another minute before sitting back up on her bed with a sigh.

"I thought you were sleeping."

To Julia’s shock, Loriam’s voice was audible from the direction of the door. When Julia turned around, she saw a surprised Loriam sitting on a couch holding a bunch of papers, with even more papers marked with the winged sword crest spread on the coffee table. Julia panicked, worried that she had been found out by Loriam.

"Did I wake you up? Sorry…"

Contrary to Julia’s expectation, Loriam was apologizing for ‘waking her up’ as she approached Julia.

"You look really terrible. You didn’t eat properly at all, did you?"

"…I ate enough…"

Julia avoided Loriam's eyes as she attempted to deny her claim. But Loriam wasn’t amused.

"You ate enough? Just look at yourself. You are clearly starving. You need to drink blood. You know that right?"

"But you said that I could eat normal things instead. Ouch!"

Loriam flicked Julia’s forehead with a sigh. Julia started to rub her forehead. What was that for!?

"I never said that you could eat human food instead of blood. Why do you think we even drink it, to begin with?"

"I am not really starving…"

Julia continued her denials in hope that Loriam was going to leave soon, but Loriam sighed and unbuttoned her blouse, revealing her shoulder to Julia.

"You not really convincing when you glancing at my neck and drooling, go on."

Loriam bared her neck with a slight blush on her face. As Julia stared at her in confusion, doing her utmost best to not look at Loriam’s delicate neck.

"Don’t just sit there, it's painful to watch the state you’re in. So don’t hold back."

Julia swallowed a mouthful of saliva. Her hunger being unbearable combined with Loriam’s pale, delicate neck so close to Julia was making her unable to hold back.

"Someone’s eager, that’s it take you time. Drink as much as you want."

Unable to hold back, Julia launched herself at Loriam, her fangs piercing Loriam’s skin with ease. Loriam smiled as she felt her blood being sucked by Julia, and gently embraced Julia while petting her head. Julia closed her eyes, lost in the delight of Loriam’s sweet blood filling her mouth. She continued to drink greedily, not paying attention to Loriam petting her head.

"Is mommy’s blood tasty, Julia? Giggle, you are just like a little baby drinking so greedily. Don’t worry, mom isn’t going anywhere."

Julia nodded lightly and slowed down. She was surprised by how tasty Loriam’s blood was. But was Loriam really not bothered by this? Julia could still vividly remember when Loriam bit her, so she could tell it wasn’t a pleasant experience. After a few minutes, Julia stopped drinking.

"You were really hungry, huh? But are you sure that you had your fill?"

Loriam asked Julia, but the only answer she received was Julia’s soft breathing. which made Loriam worried.

"Julia?"

Loriam gently pushed Julia from herself as Julia left out a dissatisfied grumble. When Loriam got a better view of Julia’s face, her face relaxed into a gentle smile.

"You really are like a little baby, aren’t you?"

Julia had fallen asleep in Loriam’s embrace. Loriam smiled and wiped the remaining blood from the corner of Julia’s mouth with a handkerchief.

"Drank my blood and fell asleep… how nostalgic."

Loriam tucked Julia into a bed just like she used to when Julia was a baby, all the while reminiscing about the past. Planting a gentle kiss on her daughter’s cheek Loriam quietly left. Now to figure out what Julia was so angry about.

"Sweet dreams, Julia."